‘Should White Boys Still Be Allowed to Talk?’

‘Should White Boys Still Be Allowed to Talk?’

Leda Fisher didn’t waste any time getting to the point in her recent essay in The Dickinsonian. The title was”Should White Boys Still Be Allowed to Talk?”

“When you ask a question at a lecture, is it secretly just your opinion ending with the phrase ‘do you agree?'” asked Fisher, a senior at Dickinson College, at the start of her piece in the student paper. “If so, your name is something like Jake, or Chad, or Alex, and you were taught that your voice is the most important in every room. Somewhere along your academic journey, you decided your search for intellectual validation was more important than the actual exchange of information. Now how do you expect to actually learn anything?”

Fisher added, “From classes and lectures, to the news and politics, there is an endless line of white boys waiting to share their opinions on the state of feminism in America, whether the LGBTQ+ population finally has enough rights, the merits of capitalism, etc. The list of what white boys think they are qualified to talk about is endless … White boys spout the narrative of dominant ideologies and pretend they’re hot takes instead of the same misleading garbage shoved down our throats by American institutions from birth.”

The willingness of white male students to dominate discussions extends to those in which they may not have personal knowledge, Fisher wrote. “I cannot describe to you how frustrating it is to be forced to listen to a white boy explain his take on the black experience in the Obama era. Hey, Brian, I’m an actual black woman alive right now with a brain. In what world would your understanding of my life carry more weight than my understanding?”

She closed her piece by saying, “So, should white boys still be allowed to share their ‘opinions’? Should we be forced to listen? In honor of Black History Month, I’m gonna go with a hell no. Go find someone whose perspective has been buried or ignored and listen to them, raise up their voice. To all the Chrises, Ryans, Olivers and Seans out there, I encourage you to critically examine where your viewpoints come from, read a text that challenges you without looking for reasons to dismiss it and maybe try listening from now on.”

The debate Fisher was seeking did take off — and not just at Dickinson….